


It Will Come Back

by kristhaswaggerdaddy



Series: 2016 Kaisoo Birthday Fics [2]
Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Fluff, Horror, Light Angst, M/M, Supernatural Elements, Vampires
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-11
Updated: 2016-08-11
Packaged: 2018-08-08 02:07:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 19,156
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7739332
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kristhaswaggerdaddy/pseuds/kristhaswaggerdaddy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A thunderstorm one night brings more than broken branches to Kyungsoo's doorstep.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. don't give it a hand, offer it a soul

**Author's Note:**

> I made the mistake of trying to import this from aff and not only did they import everything, but i also got the coding and everything from aff's website too :-) fun times.... At least I now know that the import button isn't gonna work for me =.='

Kyungsoo had brought out his foldable table and foldable stool today, along with his homework to sit under his favourite tree, just as he always did on weekends when his parents didn’t have any plans to go out.

He liked that particular spot because the soil was never too muddy, even after a long day of rainso his shoes weren’t dirty when it was time to go back into the house. It wasn’t too deep into the woods either; it was easy to spot from the kitchen inside the house and the tree provided just enough shade to shield Kyungsoo from the sun.

The tree itself though, was another matter entirely.

It was old and big, reaching up towards the sky as gravity and its roots couldn’t hold it down to the earth, no matter the laws of physics. Kyungsoo had tried investigating it once in middle school for a science project, but he couldn’t seem to figure out what species it was.

The leaves were similar to maple leaves, but the underside was a dark, mottled purple and the bark didn’t look like the bark of the usual maple trees he’d seen online. The trunk was a misshapen mess as well, with thick bulges sticking out in the front. The tree looked like a pregnant woman, if Kyungsoo were to personify it.

Just looking at it felt chaotic but for some reason, Kyungsoo loved it. The tree just gave off a nice vibe, like a doting grandparent.

If he couldn’t figure how to balance an equation he liked to stare at it too, trying to imagine what the bulges looked like. And if he didn’t know any better, he would’ve thought the bulge sticking of the trunk looked like an arm and a little ways from it was a wing, sticking out at an angle.

_An angel_ , Kyungsoo mused, looking up at it now. An angel trapped in a tree, condemned by God perhaps, or a demon, jealous of the angel’s beauty. The possibilities were endless.

_But how did the angel get in the tree anyway_? Kyungsoo asked himself.

That was a question worth pondering about. A breeze rustled through the woods, gentle and cool.

The rough bark of the tree was dark grey at this time of the year; its trunk looked dry and near death, but the branches still had plenty of leaves. _Probably some cross species_ , Kyungsoo thought, opening up his books and turning to the pages he’d dog-eared in school. He’d long given up on figuring out what it was and had since settled on simply admiring the tree.

Kyungsoo had a bit of reading to do today for English class which was perfect in this weather. Then there were some questions to answer about the chapter he was supposed to read, so with luck he could probably have a free day tomorrow—

“BOO!” a loud voice bellowed from behind Kyungsoo.

Startled, he jerked on his stool and almost dropped his book on the ground. The douche bag behind him started laughing like it was such a hoot and Kyungsoo narrowed his eyes, recognizing the laugh. He didn’t need to turn around to elbow him right in the stomach, heart beating out of his chest.

“Ow!” Baekhyun complained, clutching at his stomach and dropping to the ground dramatically. Kyungsoo took a deep breath and returned his attention to his book.

“Always nice to see you, Baekhyun,” he said icily.

Sometimes Kyungsoo regretted ever showing Baekhyun the path he’d found through the trees when they were younger that led to Baekhyun and Chanyeol’s street. Baekhyun was always abusing the path by creeping up to Kyungsoo and scaring the living daylights out of him, even though he made it clear time and time again that such secret paths were not revealed to best friends only to have your best friend sneak up on you at the worst possible time.

“It was worth it,” Baekhyun grimaced from the ground, holding a thumb up.

Kyungsoo tried to find the page he was reading once more, but it was hard to concentrate now that Baekhyun was here. Kyungsoo wasn’t sure why he was still friends with him when it was obvious that their friendship didn’t have any positive benefits.

“You doin’ your homework?” Baekhyun jeered, getting to his feet. He cocked his head to one side, trying to get a look at the cover of the book.

“I suppose it’s quite foreign to you, since _you_ never do your homework,” Kyungsoo replied nonchalantly. Baekhyun made a hissing sound as if that comment had burned him.

“Nobody does homework these days, it’s the _in thing_ ,” Baekhyun said. He started stretching while looking around the area, from the large tree to Kyungsoo’s home several feet away. Even though Baekhyun was silent, Kyungsoo could hardly read a single sentence in his book. His presence was just far too stifling for reading.

“What the hell do you want, Baekhyun?” Kyungsoo said after a minute, shutting his book with a snap. Baekhyun looked bewildered.

“Nothing.”

“You just casually came through the trees one fine day, knowing that I’d be sitting here, for _nothing_?” Kyungsoo pressed.

“Oh fine. Chanyeol had to go out with his parents for some camping trip and Jongdae’s having piano classes right now so I don’t have anyone to play with. Play with me, Kyungsoo, play with me,” Baekhyun whined, leaning his head on Kyungsoo’s shoulder with his hands pressed together in mock prayer.

Kyungsoo sighed heavily.

He couldn’t believe Baekhyun was still in the mood to ‘play’. They were both too old to ‘play’ anything except Xbox or tag, both of which Kyungsoo had no interest in currently. “We’re sixteen,” he said slowly as if he were speaking to a child, “There’s nothing we can play, Baekhyun, not unless you’ve brought your toy cars with you.”

Baekhyun suddenly smiled at him with eyes wide open. “Yes, there is,” he said.

He stared at Kyungsoo for a few seconds, all smiles and wide eyes. Kyungsoo waited for him to say something.

“Well?” he demanded.

“Play with me, _please_ ,” Baekhyun replied, employing what he thought was his cutest voice. Kyungsoo wanted to puke all over him at that moment, half in annoyance and the other half in second hand embarrassment.

“Play WHAT?” Kyungsoo almost yelled.

“With, um,” Baekhyun mumbled, toeing the ground and swinging his body from side to side like some Japanese schoolgirl anime character.

“With?” Kyungsoo goaded him.

“With your... your um. Well, your— your Xbox at home,” Baekhyun mumbled, then batted his eyelashes at Kyungsoo.

Kyungsoo rolled his eyes.

Baekhyun saw his reaction and immediately went into wailing-and-begging mode. “Please, Kyungsoo, please! Just this one time with your Xbox today and I’ll never bother you ever again. You can sit out here for the rest of the year if you want to, I’ll never crash through the trees while you do your boring homework—”

“I get the point,” Kyungsoo snapped. He looked down at his book in resignation. Taking out the Xbox would mean spending the whole day with it, no matter how much Kyungsoo wanted to read his book. He’d spent days like these with Baekhyun before where he was so engrossed with his game the day would just fly by.

“You’re buying me lunch at school on Monday,” Kyungsoo groused.

Baekhyun threw his hands up and started yelling incoherently, running in circles around Kyungsoo while he folded his chair and table to bring it back into the house. Baekhyun did a little dance as he ran, spinning and waving his arms around like an octopus. A breeze picked up again, as if the woods rejoiced with Baekhyun as well.

Kyungsoo put on his grumpiest expression, stopping Baekhyun mid-run to make him hold some of his stuff.

“Ew, I don’t touch stationery,” Baekhyun looked down at Kyungsoo’s things in disgust.

“Okay, then I can just set my stuff up again and—” Baekhyun took his things quickly out of Kyungsoo’s hands.

Kyungsoo laughed, nudging Baekhyun playfully while they started to walk.“Is your mom home?” Baekhyun asked.

“Yeah. My dad is too,” he nodded. Baekhyun pouted.

“It’s way more fun when parents aren’t around...”

They bickered as they walked together, climbing up the steps to the patio before entering through the back door.

Baekhyun walked in first, greeting Kyungsoo’s parents loudly. Kyungsoo shook his head as he shut the door after himself; Baekhyun came over far too often till he was almost an extended family member. It didn’t help that Kyungsoo’s mother thought he was ‘charming’ and welcomed him like she would her own son.

As he looked down to kick off his shoes, Kyungsoo caught a final glance at the old tree. Its branches were swaying in the breeze, some of its leaves fluttering into the distance. _It looks a little lonely outside there_ , Kyungsoo thought.

He felt kind of sorry for the tree, standing there day and night all year round with not much company except for the other trees around it.

But he wasn’t a kid anymore, and trees didn’t feel anything.

*

“We’re just going to get dinner for you boys. No leaving the house, alright?” Kyungsoo’s mother said admonishingly, wagging a finger at them.

Kyungsoo looked up for a second to nod at his mother.

“Okay, mom. We’ll be inside,” he replied. A zombie suddenly appeared on the TV screen in the corner of Kyungsoo’s eye and he hacked at it with his weapon viciously, fingers pressing the buttons on his joystick frantically.

Baekhyun whooped in excitement, sitting up on the sofa. “What move was that, Kyungsoo, do it again!” he said.

Kyungsoo’s parents laughed and shook their heads at the both of them. “Take a break in a minute, boys. Your eyes will go bad if you stare at the screen for too long,” Kyungsoo’s dad said in a stern voice, getting all dad-ish.

“Don’t worry, I have my glass eyes in today,” Baekhyun replied without hesitation. Kyungsoo’s mother chuckled, taking her keys out from the key box on the wall.

“Have fun, alright? We won’t be gone very long, it looks like it’s going to rain soon,” she said.

Kyungsoo barely heard her, desperate to kill as many zombies as possible before the timer ran out. Baekhyun mumbled a goodbye after Kyungsoo’s parents as they left the house, his eyes peeled on the TV screen.

It was a little after they’dpulled out of the porch that the timer finally ran out, and Kyungsoo sliced three zombie heads off their shoulders just in time. The scores added up and Kyungsoo emerged as the winner of the round by 500 points.

The words ‘ _Congratulations, p3nguin_s00. You are the winner’_ popped out on the screen. He smirked as Baekhyun flung the joystick on the sofa beside him, curling up into a ball of silent shame.

“No,” he croaked quietly. Kyungsoo stood up, stretching his arms and legs.

They’d been playing on the Xbox since the afternoon, snacking on sliced fruits from the fridge in between the hours. Kyungsoo’s parents were busy cleaning upstairs throughout the entire time, so they were left to their own devices, _literally_. Kyungsoo was mildly surprised, in fact; he’d expected his parents to be a little stricter with him.

“How could I have lost the round? I was killing it,” Baekhyun ed. Kyungsoo threw a pillow at him.

“Because I did better than you, duh. Let’s take a break for real, Baek, my eyes are dry and I need to pee,” Kyungsoo said, rubbing at his eyes as he shuffled to the washroom by the stairs. He shut the door, listening to Baekhyun’s footsteps thump past to the kitchen.

“There’s some juice in the fridge,” Kyungsoo called. He heard a rattle and Baekhyun yelled, “But I want something to eat.”

“Help yourself then,” Kyungsoo called back. He flushed when he was done, washing his hands at the sink and observed his reflection. His eyes were a little red around the edges, and his skin looked a shade paler than usual.

_The classic gamer look,_ Kyungsoo mused. Oh well, he’d get some eye drops from his room upstairs before going another round with Baekhyun.

He stepped out of the toilet a minute later, padding to the kitchen to see what Baekhyun had found in the fridge. He was munchinghappily on an energy bar, seated on a stool by the island. Baekhyun too, looked a little pale. Kyungsoo had no idea why staring at the TV for long hours did that to people.

“That energy bar belongs to my dad,” Kyungsoo said flatly.

“You said help yourself,” Baekhyun shrugged. Kyungsoo shrugged back; it wasn’t his problem if his dad came home later only to find out that his last energy bar for the week was gone.

“Don’t you need to head home soon? Or are you planning to sleep over?” Kyungsoo asked, pulling the fridge door open to get some juice. He took two glasses from the kitchen counter, pouring juice for the both of them while Baekhyun spoke.

“My mom hasn’t called so I guess she wouldn’t mind me sleeping over since it’s Saturday... But do I wanna be stuck in the same house with you for an entire night?” Baekhyun asked lightly.

Kyungsoo stopped short from spitting into Baekhyun’s glass of juice. He handed it to Baekhyun with a surly look.

“Well, why don’t you think about it while I go upstairs and grab something?” he replied sarcastically. Baekhyun laughed, holding the glass up in cheers as Kyungsoo gulped down some juice before he placed it on the counter.

“I’ll think hard, I promise,” Baekhyun said, tapping his temple.Kyungsoo scoffed in amusement, walking away from him.

He hummed a little song to himself as he went up the stairs to grab some toffee candy he’d hid under his bed just for Baekhyun. He never put them in the fridge because he knew that Baekhyun wouldn’t be able to resist eating all of them at once and so he fed them to Baekhyun in small trickles whenever he came over. Again, he wasn’t quite sure how they were still friends through the years. Baekhyun was _such_ a dumb .

It was dark with all the doors closed and the lights out. Some moonlight shone in from a small window above the stairs, but apart from that it was almost pitch black. Kyungsoo was hardly afraid of the dark, though it was a little unnerving to hear the trees swaying in the wind like they were afraid of something.

He always thought it sounded like they were whispering warnings to one another, their soft voices carried by the wind.

_Stop scaring yourself_ , he thought, shaking his head. It was probably an after effect from all that gaming the entire afternoon. Kyungsoo opened the door to his bedroom, feet padding on the soft carpet.

He didn’t bother with the lights, just went down straight on his knees to crawl under his bed. Kyungsoo felt around blindly with his hands for the air tight jar and tugged it out when his fingers curled around it. With a bit of difficulty, he shuffled out from underneath his bed and yelped when he conked his head on the metal frame.

“Goddamn it,” he mumbled, rubbing his skull. The things he did for Baekhyun sometimes. Without any further preamble, he unscrewed the cap from the jar, sticking his hand in to grab a few of the toffee sweets in his fist and shut it again, pushing it under his bed when he was done.

Kyungsoo got to his feet, about to walk out of the room with the candy in hand when thunder and lightning crashed loudly in the sky.

He ducked on instinct out of surprise, catching a glance of blinding white in the corner of his eye from the window facing his bed. “HOLY !” he heard Baekhyun yell out from downstairs.

Holy indeed; that was the loudest clap of thunder Kyungsoo had ever heard in his entire life. He immediately thought of his parents who were probably on the road and hoped they were fine. _I think I’ll give ‘em a call_ , Kyungsoo thought anxiously.

And he would have been dialling up his parents seconds later downstairs, if only he didn’t spot something moving outside his window when a flash of lightning illuminated the outside world for a second.

Kyungsoo frowned, freezing in his tracks. He thought he saw his favourite tree move, and it wasn’t just the branches. The trunk itself seemed to have moved, as if it had come to life on such a thunderous night. Kyungsoo approached the window, squinting out carefully into the darkness. With his astigmatism he couldn’t see much, but he thought he could make out a few shapes.

A large branch had fallen from a tree and lay between the short distances of the woods to Kyungsoo’s home. Some of the trees were leaning unnaturally towards the ground, bending in the direction of the wind. Another flash of lightning, and he caught sight of his tree.

Its trunk was split in half to his amazement, as if someone had tried to break out from the tree. The middle was charred black too, probably from the powerful strike of thunder. Of course, Kyungsoo knew intellectually that he had seen the tree move now because it had been cracked apart like an egg by the thunder, but somehow he couldn’t quite shake it off.

That was probably the creepiest thing he’d ever seen happen to the woods behind his home. _It’s probably just the shock_ , Kyungsoo told himself. What if he’d been out there for some reason? He would’ve died without a doubt, cooked to death in a split second. A shudder ran down his spine. Goosebumps sprung to life, prickling his arms and the back of his neck. His imagination was running wild as he backed away from the window.

It was time to go downstairs.

He hurried out of his room and down the stairs, too shaken to be thinking straight. It wasn’t like there was anything to be afraid of at home, but the darkness didn’t seem so welcoming anymore.

“Baekhyun?” Kyungsoo called when he reached the bottom of the stairs. His hands were shaking slightly.

“Yeah, I’m over here,” Baekhyun called back from the kitchen. Kyungsoo walked over to the kitchen, expecting Baekhyun to be scared out of his wits. Instead, he was surprised for a second time in the span of five minutes.

“Jesus,” Kyungsoo hissed.

Baekhyun was crouched on the ground with a handheld broom and dustpan set, shattered glass scattered all over the kitchen floor. It looked like there were a million pieces on the ground, reflecting light from the chandelier hanging over the kitchen island. He yelled and gestured at Kyungsoo to stop at once.

“Don’t come any closer yet,” he warned, “you don’t wanna injure yourself.” Kyungsoo noticed Baekhyun had his mother’s slippers on his feet. At least he was being careful.

“But Baekhyun, what the hell happened? Did you break something?” Kyungsoo asked, placing the toffee candies on the kitchen island. He looked around the kitchen, trying to figure out what could’ve been the object the pieces of glass once was.

“You got me, Kyungsoo. I have no idea what just happened,” Baekhyun shook his head.

“One minute I’m sitting here eating peacefully and the next minute, the thunder was so loud I thought I went deaf. Then I feel something brushing my foot and it scared the out of me so I looked down at the ground before I realized the window above the sink had broken and there was just glass everywhere,” Baekhyun said, pushing as much glass he could onto the dustpan.

“Okay…” Kyungsoo breathed.

He glanced up at the window; it wasn’t just broken. The frame was completely empty now and devoid of anything to hold back the wind and rain from outside. He spotted some chunks of glass in the sink as well. The little curtain hanging above it fluttered.

_That’s new,_ Kyungsoo thought. It must’ve been some kind of freak storm out there if it could split the tree in half and even break a window.

“Did a stone fly through the windowor something?” Kyungsoo asked, walking away from the kitchen to get an extra broom and dustpan from under the stairs. His mother was going to freak once she came home to this.

“I don’t know, I haven’t found anything yet,” Baekhyun replied.

“It’s okay. Let’s just clean all this up, but leave the sink alone.” Kyungsoo returned to the kitchen and began to sweep up the bits of glass nearest to him.

There was less glass than he initially thought since some of it crashed into the sink, but Kyungsoo was taking no chances. He swept the kitchen five times over even after Baekhyun was done collecting the larger bits. Call him paranoid neat freak, but at least he’d be sure no one would cut themselves on a sharp piece of broken glass later.

“Hey, I think I’ve just found the culprit,” Baekhyun suddenly said when he was throwing the last bits of glass away into the bin under the sink.

Kyungsoo joined him by the sink cautiously, as if staring at the pieces of glass for too long could cut him. Baekhyun pointed with his little finger, “Do you see that under this piece of glass here? It’s not a rock that flew in… I think it’s a broken branch.”

Kyungsoo looked a little closer and saw that Baekhyun was right. It _was_ a broken branch, but it was thick and looked solid with a small leaf stuck to it.“It looks healthy though,” Kyungsoo frowned.

“Branches don’t get sick, Kyungsoo,” Baekhyun said in a loud, obnoxious voice. Kyungsoo rolled his eyes, glaring at Baekhyun.

“I mean, it doesn’t look all dry and brittle, which is how it could’ve taken out the whole damned window. It was broken and snapped off a tree, maybe from the storm,” Kyungsoo said, then looked out the empty window frame. He could see from where he stood that the big tree was still split in half ( _so it wasn’t my imagination_ , he thought), branches leaning dangerously over its sides like banana peel.

“I bet it came from that tree,” Kyungsoo pointed outside, feeling a shiver run down his spine.

Baekhyun squinted out into the darkness then gasped at the sight of the old tree, or what was left of it just mere metres away from the house. The large fallen branch partially blocking their view of the woods looked even larger from the kitchen, its crooked arms reaching out somewhat feebly in multiple directions. The whole thing was starting to creep Kyungsoo out.

“Let’s just wait for my parents to come back,” Kyungsoo said, more to himself than to Baekhyun. He didn’t like how the woods looked different now. Like it was unsafe, or hiding something dangerous among the shadows.

His best friend nodded, putting the dustpan on the kitchen island. Kyungsoo thought Baekhyun looked a little shaken too, a touch of tension around his jaw.

“Oh hey, is that toffee? Thanks, Soo,” Baekhyun brightened up when he saw the toffee candy Kyungsoo left on the other end of the kitchen island. Kyungsoo shrugged and laughed weakly, shoving him gently towards the living room. If only he could lighten up as easily as Baekhyun did. There was something unsettling in the air now, something like _danger._

_ * _

At night Kyungsoo lay in bed wide awake, staring up at his ceiling. There were airplanes, cars and trucks all over it, zooming to some destination only a little boy could imagine.

Admittedly, the wallpaper of his ceiling and bedroom walls had yet to catch up with his adolescence period. But just as his wallpaper was childish now that he was sixteen, soon to be eighteen, Kyungsoo was wide awake not because he couldn’t sleep, but because he was childishly afraid to be alone in his room.

His mother, as Kyungsoo wisely predicted, was terrified and worried out of her wits when she came home with pizza and pasta to learn that a piece of broken branch had smashed into the window.

She was worried that Baekhyun might’ve been hurt and sent Kyungsoo’s father to drive him back to his home at once (with three slices of pizza and a serving of creamy fettuccine of course, to thank him for helping with the clean up). Then she fretted over the window, lamenting that it would cost a bit of money to get someone in to fix it and not to mention, “How are we going to sleep tonight?” she complained.

Kyungsoo had frowned. How did the broken window have anything to do with sleeping?

“What if a robber slips in through this window and takes our money, our things? The back door is just right here and they could reach for the doorknob if they really tried... Oh Kyungsoo, I’m sorry I left you all alone when this happened,” she said when she caught the pale look on Kyungsoo’s face.

“You must’ve been scared,” she patted his back soothingly.

“It’s okay, mom, I’m not ten anymore,” he had chuckled, hugging her. They taped the empty window frame up just to be on the safe side.

_If I’m not ten anymore then why am I still awake?_ Kyungsoo asked himself. Honestly, there was nothing to be afraid about. His father chose to sleep on the couch tonight to make sure no one would break in from the kitchen, and they had locked up every room, including their own bedroom doors in case someone did break in and managed to creep past Kyungsoo’s dad.

They had never been robbed the entire time they lived in the house, not even so much as have a car drive around the area suspiciously, but Kyungsoo was still _scared_. Scared enough that he was having trouble sleeping, and he wasn’t an insomniac.

_What am I scared of anyway?_ He thought angrily.

All that really happened was a broken window and a broken tree, not really much of an indication that he should be scared of anything specifically. His senses didn’t agree with his reasoning, however; his ears kept tuning to every little sound, from the sound of the trees still swaying in the wind to brief creaks around the house. The weather wasn’t helping too. The rain had slowed down some and the thunder already stopped an hour ago but it was still drizzling outside. He felt like he was about to go insane with fear and paranoia. 

_Maybe I’ll read a book or something_ , he thought. A calming book might soothe him somewhat till he could fall asleep. In the morning, it would all just be a memory, one that Kyungsoo could look back at and laugh at himself for being so afraid of a thunderstorm.

Gritting his teeth with determination, Kyungsoo kicked off the covers and walked over to his small bookshelf, scanning through the titles on the spines of his book collection.

_True Singapore Ghost Stories?_ Not tonight, sorry. _Frankenstein?_ Nope. _The Twilight Saga?_ Jesus Christ, no, and it wasn’t even his set of books to begin with. Baekhyun and his chick lit.

Pursing his lips, Kyungsoo tugged his encyclopaedia of trees and flowers out of the shelf in annoyance, as if his book collection was to blame for all his fears and worries.

He stalked back to his bed, dug out a torch from the drawer of his dresser and began to read the encyclopaedia, one that didn’t contain monsters or ghosts or vampires. Just plain old science, pretty pictures of plants and bits of information that could come in handy if he ever wanted to be a botanist one day.

The drizzle outside stopped after a while. The world tuned out as Kyungsoo lost himself in long words that he couldn’t pronounce, imagining the smell of each flower he came across in the encyclopaedia. His parents had bought him a set of encyclopaedias when he was 12 but this particular one was his favourite. It gave him just enough information to capture his attention without dragging on too much, and he had learned a lot about the plants out behind his home through this book.

Kyungsoo was reading about the belladonna flower under the ‘B’ category and how it was sometimes used as a symbol of ancient magical lore when Kyungsoo heard a low thud from downstairs, the sound so soft and muted he wondered if he imagined it.

He looked up, tilting his head to one side. It sounded like it came directly below him, and what else could be below his bedroom but the kitchen?

_Maybe it’s just dad getting some water_ , Kyungsoo thought. Wouldn’t be the first time Mr. Do got thirsty at night, he had bumped into his father many times in the dead of night looking for a glass of water too.

Then he heard it, a soft thud. It was so low Kyungsoo barely heard it through the silence. But he _did_ hear it and it wasn’t his imagination anymore.

_Dad probably bumped into the island_ , Kyungsoo told himself, feeling his heartbeat quicken in his chest. _It’s nothing big, nothing’s wrong, there’s no intruder in the house_ , Kyungsoo tried to tell himself. He bit his lower lip, glancing at his bedroom door. He half expected the doorknob to suddenly twist like someone from the other side was trying to come in, but nothing happened.

_Oh God, I can’t take this_ , Kyungsoo thought, shutting his encyclopaedia.

There were two choices now. Kyungsoo could stay in bed, listening to every little bump in the night and wonder if his father was alright downstairs or he could open the door, go downstairs himself and check on the window and back door, make sure everything was still locked and tight.

The first option, Kyungsoo liked; it would mean he was safe for sure upstairs but that was stupid and selfish. If there really was a robber, they could smash down Kyungsoo’s bedroom door if they wanted to. Which led to the second option; going out of his room to see for himself that everything was fine and reassure himself that he was just being paranoid. Both sounded daunting. Only one made sense.

Kyungsoo got out of bed once more, gripping his torchlight tightly in his hand. He took baby steps towards his bedroom door, staring at the thin beam of faint moonlight coming through from beneath it. If a person had been standing there then the straight horizontal line would’ve been interrupted. So, squaring his shoulders with a steely determination that he did not have, Kyungsoo unlocked the door and threw it wide open.

Nothing.

The usual vase of fake flowers stood at its usual corner near the top of the stairs, the window above the stairs was still shut tight and locked... Not that anyone could’ve climbed through that unless they could fly.

_Coast is clear then_ , Kyungsoo thought, stepping out. His mother’s bedroom door on his right was closed too. He reached out a hand to try the door, and it was still locked.

Good. _Moving on downstairs_ , Kyungsoo thought, trying to remain as calm and objective as possible. The thud really could’ve been anything, his dad, some misplaced object toppling over... _An unwelcome intruder_ , his thoughts interjected.

_Shutupbrainshutup_ , Kyungsoo shook his head hurriedly as he tiptoed to the stairs. He couldn’t see anything amiss downstairs and that should’ve sufficed, eased his anxieties enough for him to go back into bed. It wasn’t the deal he’d made with himself though, and he couldn’t actually see his dad from the top of the stairs.

_I just need to know if dad is okay._ That was all he needed, and he could go back to bed, throw the covers over himself and try to settle in for the night. That was all.

Holding the torch up to eye level, Kyungsoo took one step forward, then another and another.

He inched his way downstairs like that, keeping count so he wouldn’t trip and break his neck. It was slow and almost painful for his thighs. By the time he was at the bottom of the stairs, Kyungsoo’s mind was racing, his palms were sweaty and his heart was beating out of his throat. The entire world seemed to be holding its breath in the silence, waiting for something to shatter the quiet.

He turned to the right first, where the living room was. There his father slept on the couch, snoring as he took each breath. A blanket was thrown carelessly over himself, but other than that, Mr. Do was perfectly fine.

_Thank God,_ Kyungsoo exhaled through his mouth. A burden lifted considerablyoff his shoulders, and he patted his chest to calm his heart.

_Dad’s alright,_ he kept saying to himself in his head, _Dad’s alright._ All that was left now was to check on the window. Kyungsoo his heel, lowering the torchlight to his side. At that moment, he thought he saw a flash of black passing before him.

_What was that?_ He froze, rooted to the spot where he stood.

_It had to have been my imagination_ , Kyungsoo thought. Like the thudding noise he thought he heard, it happened so quick Kyungsoo was almost sure he imagined this too. Almost. He turned his head stiffly to the left where he thought the person or shadow or thing had gone to; there was nothing under the stairs.

_Was it just my own shadow against the wall?_ Kyungsoo thought.

Jesus, how long did he have to keep asking himself these questions? He was tired of feeling afraid and reassuring himself that it wasn’t a ghost or some sort of intruder. _There aren’t any ghosts in this world,_ Kyungsoo recalled his grandmother saying once.

_No ghosts._

“There’s nothing to be afraid of,” Kyungsoo murmured under his breath. That was more like it. Saying it out loud made him feel better, like it was the truth just because he could hear himself say those words.

“Nothing to be chicken about,” Kyungsoo muttered once more, taking large strides towards the kitchen. Moving like he was confident reassured him some. “There is nothing to be afraid of, nothing except a burglar with a gun—” he stepped into the kitchen, holding up the torch.

_Oh my God_. Kyungsoo’s courage dropped down to zero.

Everything was wrong. Or to be more precise, only one thing was wrong about the scene, so very wrong that Kyungsoo felt goosebumps prickle over his spine, arms and legs, his heart rate picking up.

The kitchen was fine. His mother’s kitchen tools were untouched. The window above the sink was still taped up, thin beams of moonlight peeking through the parts that weren’t covered completely. But a breeze was coming through the back door, and that wasn’t right, it wasn’t ing right because _the back door was wide open._

_I have to warn Dad_ —

That was all Kyungsoo could manage to think of before the smell of earth and brimstone filled his nostrils and a hand clamped down heavily over his mouth.

Without thinking, Kyungsoo flailed his arms in a panic to get away, dropping his torchlight. He never heard it clatter to the ground and neither did his dad seem to hear it either, because Kyungsoo felt the intruder press his arm over Kyungsoo’s front and drag him towards the stairs, holding Kyungsoo close against his body. Kyungsoo struggled with all his might but it was futile; whoever it was much stronger than Kyungsoo.

He didn’t want to die like this or be before his entire body was chopped up and thrown into a river. He had so much to say and see, so much more he wanted to do before he was six feet into the ground. Kyungsoo wiggled and thrashed against the intruder with all his might despite knowing the odds were against him, angry tears running down his cheeks.

“You’re mine now,” the intruder, a male, rasped in Kyungsoo’s ear, mouth brushing his earlobe. Kyungsoo shuddered and protested under his hand weakly, straining to break out of the intruder’s iron grip.

Before he knew it, the intruder’s arm over him snapped up in a blur to hold Kyungsoo’s face up at a certain angle. Kyungsoo kept his eyes wide open, wanting to know the face of his murderer. Somewhere in the back of his head, Kyungsoo noted that the intruder smelled like earth; what a strange scent to wear.

All Kyungsoo caught were green slit-pupilled eyes like a cat’s, and the next thing he knew was pain.

-

_Kyungsoo dreamed of being stuck somewhere in a place terribly confined._

_His body hurt because he couldn’t move, he felt like he couldn’t breathe properly, and the hopelessness he was drowning in was like a pit of quicksand, choking him of life. It felt like torture to be stuck in that one place._

_The only solace he could find in such a confinement was a small window of light which he could peer out of, though the view was heavily blurred and distorted. Through it, he could see a white building built right in the middle of a grassy plain. It was a large construction of some sort that looked strangely familiar; a view that he seemed to remember and yet couldn’t place, like a person he vaguely recognized from long ago._

_Regardless, the view was peaceful, unlike how Kyungsoo was feeling inside._

_Someone abruptly exited the building just when Kyungsoo was starting to lose interest in looking out at the view. The person, perhaps a child no more than ten, could hardly remember to shut the door after himself before running over excitedly._

_Now could be his chance to escape this treacherous trap! He tried to move his arms or legs to get the child’s attention though there seemed to be no space for him to do so. It was near impossible to move in the confined space; all that moved in the end were the branches stirring somewhere above his head._

_Meanwhile, the child —naively oblivious to Kyungsoo’s internal struggle— meandered close enough to Kyungsoo from him to see that it was a young boy dressed in a sweater and long trousers._

_Again, this child was familiar too, like the building just a short distance away, but Kyungsoo could not for the life of him, place where he had seen or met him. The boy soon came so close he disappeared from Kyungsoo’s limited view, his head of dark hair bobbing up every so often._

_After a few minutes, the boy brushed his hand gently over Kyungsoo’s hip bone. He startled, but of course he didn’t move an inch. He wondered just what the boy was doing exactly. He seemed to be searching for something or observing the surrounding area of what Kyungsoo thought must be his home. Nevertheless, it was intriguing to see a young boy like him who was so focused that he became deathly quiet during his observations._

_Suddenly, the boy’s face completely filled Kyungsoo’s view, eyebrows furrowed together in total seriousness. Kyungsoo shrunk back in surprise though he could not have moved much in his tight confinement._

_The distortion cleared for a brief moment, long enough that Kyungsoo could see the boy’s every feature clearly. Pale skin, dark hair falling into his large eyes, too-big lips that took up too much of the lower half of his face... It was a face, Kyungsoo slowly realized, that he had seen many times before._

_It was his own face, and he, that boy from all those years ago, was looking right at Kyungsoo now. The fear Kyungsoo felt from that gaze threatened to overwhelm his sanity, to throw him into the pits of hell with no chance of return._

_That younger him, the other Kyungsoo’s eyes, started to melt from dark brown to a bright, intelligent green with slit pupils like that of a cat’s. Kyungsoo desperately wanted to look away but he was compelled to remain powerless under that discerning gaze, like looking at God in the eyes._

_“You’re mine now,” a voice purred all around Kyungsoo. Though he didn’t agree with what he was saying at all, it felt like those words held so much meaning, a power that he couldn’t quite understand. It was like a compulsion and Kyungsoo was helpless in its grip._

_-_

A roaring in his ears woke Kyungsoo up.

He sat up at once, eyes flying open in an instant to gauge his surroundings. Last he remembered, he was held down by the stairs near the kitchen where there were green eyes glowing in the dark and pain, pain he never knew existed—

Instead, morning light filtered in from his window, sparrows tweeting chirpily outside.

_What?_ He frowned. Kyungsoo’s encyclopaedia sat at the foot of his bed where he thought he remembered leaving it last night. When he looked down, he was gripping his favourite blanket tightly and when he looked up at the rest of his room, everything still looked the same. Nothing seemed to have changed except the weather, which was surprisingly clear.

_How did I get in bed?_ Kyungsoo asked himself. No, how was he even _alive_ after last night?

Throwing the covers back, Kyungsoo rushed towards the bedroom door (which was slightly ajar, he hurriedly noted) and bound down the stairs two steps at a time, calling for his parents.

“Dad? Dad, are you okay? Where’s mom—” Kyungsoo bumped right into Mrs. Do herself, squashing his nose on her cheek. They both squawked in surprise and pain at the same time before stepping back to look at each other questioningly.

“Mom? Are you okay?” Kyungsoo asked worriedly.

“You have a harder nose than I ever expected,” she ignored his question, wrinkling her own nose at him. Obviously she was fine. In fact, his mother seemed more surprised than traumatized.

“Mom, did anything happen last night? Is dad alright?” he insisted.

His mother frowned at him, perhaps questioning his sanity. The feeling was mutual with Kyungsoo. “Nothing happened, darling. And you can see your dad for yourself; he’s just in the kitchen with the repairman.” The last word hardly left her mouth before Kyungsoo rushed past her to the kitchen rather rudely.

“Are you alright, Kyungsoo? You’re acting a bit strange this morning,” she called after him.

Kyungsoo knew he was acting out of character but after that dream or vision, whatever that happened to him last night...

“Yes, I’m fine,” he called back distractedly. Kyungsoo spotted his father standing outside on the porch talking to a man he didn’t recognize, gesturing at the empty window frame animatedly while the other man nodded along. A bulldozer whirred loudly a few metres away, the sound of breaking branches clearly audible. That would’ve explained the roaring he heard in his ears a minute ago.

“Dad! Dad, how did everything go last night?” Kyungsoo asked.

He was about to step out onto the porch before he decided against it, eyeing the open back door suspiciously. Sure, it looked harmless now but everything always looked fine during the day.

His father glanced at him and blinked, stopping midsentence. “What are you talking about, Kyungsoo?”

“The window, t-the back door last night, I—” Kyungsoo faltered, then said, “Did anyone break in? Last night, I mean, through the back door or whatever.” The repairman and Kyungsoo’s father looked at him strangely. Standing there in his sloppy pyjamas and probably mussed slept-in hair, Kyungsoo felt just a tiny bit judged.

Mr. Do slowly shook his head.

“Everything was alright, Kyungsoo. I slept on the couch the entire night and I even checked the kitchen at around four in the morning. No one broke in and nothing happened, son,” he smiled warmly. Kyungsoo could hear the underlying condescension in his toneas if he were speaking to an overly imaginative child; Kyungsoo knew what he saw and did last night. It didn’t feel like a dream in the slightest.

“I came down last night to check on the kitchen too. The back door was wide open,” Kyungsoo said, voice flat.

His father looked a little surprised at that. “Really? Then why didn’t you call for me?” he asked.

“I wanted to but—” _But someone with eyes like a cat tried to kill me last night and I don’t even remember how I got back in bed?_ No one would’ve bought that excuse, not in a million years. Even to his ears, it sounded like a bad horror movie plot.

“I-Ijust closed the door and went back to bed,” Kyungsoo mumbled. He didn’t wait to see his father’s reaction, just his heel to go back upstairs.

If his parents were unharmed and no one had broken in last night then fine, they didn’t have to know what happened, or what Kyungsoo thought had happened. _Maybe it really was some kind of dream_ , he thought, climbing the stairs one by one.

 Well, it was one hell of a dream because he could still smell the earth and brimstone from his dream intruder, could still feel the searing pain of being—

_What happened anyway?_ Kyungsoo suddenly thought. Yes, he had felt pain but where did he feel it and what sort of pain, he couldn’t say exactly. Had he been attacked in some way? He frowned, trying to recall his dream. _Well, it wasn’t an outright attack since he was holding me down..._

All he really knew for sure was that it hurt at the exact moment he saw those green eyes and that he needed to get away in his dream.

_Wow, I sound really crazy right now_ , Kyungsoo realized, entering the bathroom upstairs to wash his face. In the mirror, his reflection was pale and the shadows under his eyes were dark. Perhaps it was all those video games getting to him. Kyungsoo twisted the tap head and cupped his hands togetherto splash water on his face, feeling the cool water shock any residue of drowsiness right out of his system.

“If it really was a dream, then what about the second part?” he asked himself aloud, squeezing toothpaste onto his toothbrush.

That dream he had right before waking up definitely had to be a dream; he’d never felt so confined before, and it was so strange to see himself when he was younger. Kyungsoo had never given much thought on how he’d been when he was a kid though he knew most boys at that particular age would’ve been much more content with toys and colouring books than dried leaves and large trees.

By the time he finished brushing his teeth and washing his face, Kyungsoo still couldn’t figure it out. Dream or no dream? He drummed his fingers on the sink, frowning at his own reflection.

Hallucination, or did his father forget to shut the back door properly last night and everything that happened after Kyungsoo came downstairs was just some sort of psychedelic manifestation of the video games he’d played?

Outside, the bulldozer whirred noisily. Kyungsoo wasn’t quite sure what was real and what wasn’t anymore.

When he finally put some proper clothes on to have breakfast, Kyungsoo skipped towards the stairs. He was willing to put it all aside as long as he knew nothing happened in his home and his family was safe, but that all went to hell when Kyungsoo came to the third step of the staircase.

He stopped, bending down to squint curiously at something on the left corner of the step. It looked like a speck of dirt at first but when he touched it and rubbed it between his fingers, it didn’t feel dry and powdery.

The speck of dirt was actually a tiny droplet of blood, and it smeared over the tips of Kyungsoo’s fingers, an undeniable streak of red. He didn’t know why he thought it was blood; it easily could’ve been a drop of Kool-Aid or some other crimson coloured drink.

However, when he stood up and looked over the railing of the staircase, Kyungsoo caught sight of his black torchlight. He froze, blinking at it in surprise. _Did I really drop it last night?_

He went down the last three steps to pick up his fallen torchlight from the ground. It had taken quite a hit; the plastic cover protecting the bulb was smashed into pieces. The body was fine since it was made of stainless steel, but that didn’t stop the barrage of questions that reeled through his head faster than he could answer them.

It _had_ to have been a dream last night. Maybe he had dropped his torchlight when he came back upstairs. Maybe that little droplet on the third step of his staircase wasn’t blood; could’ve been anything else if he was honest, though something in him doubted it. Maybe the back door was never open and he just dreamt it all up, a product of his imagination combined with fear. Maybe... Maybe it was real, and Kyungsoo just didn’t want to admit it to himself.

God only knew what really happened last night.


	2. I slithered here from Eden just to sit outside your door

“So what are you saying?” Baekhyun asked, tapping a few buttons on his calculator. Jongdae stood over them like a teacher, watching Baekhyun write down his answer carefully on his exercise book.

“No, you got it wrong, it’s 24x minus 12xy here, not plus,” Jongdae cut in before Kyungsoo could answer, pointing at Baekhyun’s calculator.

Baekhyun went red in the face like a tomato then flung his pen down on the ground, shutting his books with a slam. “That’s it! That is _it_ Jongdae, I have had enough of this! I’m never going to do math ever again!” he shouted loudly, shoving his books into his bag angrily. Jongdae sighed in exasperation for the fifth time this hour, sending an apologetic look towards Kyungsoo.

He shrugged nonchalantly; it wasn’t Jongdae’s fault that Baekhyun had always been vocal about doing homework.

Meanwhile, Chanyeol who was lying down on the bench beside Kyungsoo (“I’m learning how to photosynthesize”) lifted his cap over his face to peer at Baekhyun curiously for a moment before returning back to his photosynthesizing.

“Settle down, Baekhyun, stop being such a drama queen,” Jongdae said, placing his hands over his shoulders and shoving him back down onto his seat.

“I will not settle down if you make me do math again,” Baekhyun growled, folding his arms with his nose up in the air like a bitch. Kyungsoo waved his hand over Baekhyun’s face to get his attention, “Why don’t you just take a break now, hmm? Then you can listen to what I’m saying first and go back to your homework without me distracting you.”

Baekhyun was intrigued by that offer. Jongdae shrugged; he was cool with either option since Baekhyun was the one who desperately needed the help with his math homework.

Kyungsoo had gathered his neighbourhood pals that afternoon to meet at the park under the pretence of completing their homework together, but all Kyungsoo wanted to do was tell them what had happened the night before (or did it not happen?) to see what they thought of it. He had just gotten to the part where he found the torchlight before Baekhyun had his outburst, and now Jongdae was gesturing for him to continue what he was saying.

“So um, yeah, I found my torch and that blood or whatever on the staircase... W-what do you guys think really happened to me, exactly?” Kyungsoo said, his thoughts already scattered thanks to Baekhyun.

Jongdae cleared his throat. “I don’t know about the others but I, for one, think that you were probably just sleepwalking _and_ dreaming at the same time. So when y’know, your Mr. Kitty Cat Eyes attacked you in your dream, you reacted in real life and dropped your torch for real and maybe injured yourself somewhere as you rushed back upstairs.”

Fair point, well made. It all fitted nicely, except Kyungsoo wasn’t injured anywhere.

“I don’t have any cuts or bruises though,” Kyungsoo said, holding out his hands.

“Did you shower yet? Maybe you missed something,” Chanyeol said from under his cap. Baekhyun nodded in agreement at that, a little calmer now that they were chit chatting instead of doing homework.

“I did, before coming over. Nothing stings or leaks blood, so...” he shrugged. Kyungsoo could accept the open back door as a dream and the broken torchlight as collateral damage of his dream, but he couldn’t quite explain the droplet on the staircase. He had thought that maybe he’d cut himself or bumped his head too when he was rushing up the stairs in his dream but nothing seemed to hurt.

They were silent for a while, thoughtful till Baekhyun broke the silence. “Is the droplet still there?” he asked.

Kyungsoo shook his head. “I wiped it away because my mom would kill me if she saw it, or she’d get herself all worried thinking that I hurt myself last night.”

“Oh,” Baekhyun’s shoulder sagged in disappointment. “I thought maybe you could’ve tested it at school tomorrow to see if it was your blood for sure or y’know,” he gave a weak shrug, “someone or something else’s blood.”

Jongdae tutted at Baekhyun in annoyance, elbowing his ribs. “Don’t say that! You’ll scare Kyungsoo even more.”

Kyungsoo laughed weakly. The truth was, he was _already_ scared, no need for Jongdae to berate Baekhyun. He was afraid about going to bed tonight now that there was a fifty-fifty chance of last night’s events being more than just a dream. He was also afraid to find out where the blood had come from; what if there was more than just a droplet? What if something terrible had happened despite his home looking as clear as it would any other day?

“Another possibility of where that blood came from could be your mom, you know,” Chanyeol abruptly sat up on the bench, adjusting his cap back onto his head.

“Huh? My _mom_?” Kyungsoo repeated, frowning at him. How could his mom have anything to do with this, she was hardly injured this morning—

“I’m just saying that it _could_ be your mom because well, I live with my mom and older sister so I’ve seen some... things,” Chanyeol said vaguely, scratching the wooden bench with his finger. The three boys tilted their heads to one side questioningly, staring at Chanyeol like he was some sort of fairy child speaking gibberish.

“Things like what?” Jongdae demanded. Out of all of them, Chanyeol was the only one with an older sister so there was a chance that he knew something about females that the others didn’t.

“Y’know... like, that time of the month,” Chanyeol mumbled.

Everyone made disgusted noises at that remark, making faces or turning away from Chanyeol. They had learned about reproductive organs last week in Biology and Kyungsoo had just about finally put the sight of ovaries and Fallopian tubes out of his mind for good when Chanyeol brought it up again.

“Look, Chanyeol,” Kyungsoo sighed heavily, running his hands through his hair. “I know that girls’ bodies don’t work like ours and sometimes they—”

“Bleed?” Baekhyun supplied helpfully.

“B-bleed, yes, for lack of better terminology. But I really don’t think it was my mom because one, that’s really gross and two, my mom always has her pants on around the house, thank you very much. Unless you’re implying something goes on when I’m not awake.”

Chanyeol gave him a creepy smile.

“You know, adults have sex all the time—” Jongdae jammed Chanyeol’s cap down over his eyes and shoved him roughly in an effort to shut him up before they all learned more than they wanted to. Baekhyun wheezed at Chanyeol’s predicament while Kyungsoo sighed in relief, thanking God silently in his head for Jongdae.

“Don’t say anything if it isn’t going to help Kyungsoo,” Jongdae threatened when Chanyeol straightened his cap and readjusted himself on the bench. He held his hands up in surrender.

“Kyungsoo, you may continue now. What were you saying?” Jongdae gestured. He shrugged. His story and theories were all out now; there was nothing more he could say. Perhaps he really was just over thinking it. Now that it was bright out, it was hard to believe that anything remotely similar to his dream could’ve happened.

Jongdae had just started Baekhyun on his homework again when Chanyeol tapped Kyungsoo’s neck absently and Kyungsoo jumped, looking at Chanyeol. Did he rub his finger on the wood and electrocute him with static or something? The spot where he had touched Kyungsoo stung.

“Sorry, was that a sore spot? You have a mosquito bite here,” Chanyeol said, pointing instead of tapping Kyungsoo again.

He touched the tender spot and found a small bump, exposed above the collar of his shirt right between his neck and collarbone. Jongdae smacked Baekhyun over the head when he messed up his calculations again. Close to the bump, he felt a second bump under his shirt too, and frowned.

“Huh,” was the only thing Kyungsoo could say. He hadn’t noticed it in his shower because it wasn’t a spot he took extra care to clean.

“You should get some cream for that,” Chanyeol said, lying back down on the bench. _It isn’t itchy though_ , Kyungsoo thought, feeling the bumps with his fingers. The bumps were about an inch apart, and if Kyungsoo didn’t know better he would’ve thought a vampire had bitten him.

 _Probably an insect from last night_ , he dismissed them from his mind. Who hadn’t had some insect bites in the morning that weren’t there the night before?

-

When evening fell, Kyungsoo naturally grew nervous.

The bulldozer in the afternoon had already left, taking away the large fallen branch. Someone had chopped away at some leaned over branches from the surrounding trees as well. It left the woods looking a little naked and like the trees had shrunk away from the house.

Kyungsoo wanted to go out there again. He wanted to touch his favourite tree, make sure it wasn’t completely dead. He wanted to know if the woods still felt like home too despite everything but he restrained himself. Maybe after a little more time had passed, he could bring himself to walk among the trees without feeling his dream creeping up on him. It wasn’t like the trees were in a hurry to go somewhere anyway.

After dinner, he stayed up with his parents watching TV. He watched the news with them, a sitcom, a rerun episode of Keeping Up with the Kardashians, and even a bit of American Horror Story: Circus before his mother retired first. Kyungsoo’s father read the newspaper quietly while Kyungsoo watched TV and looked up when he yawned.

“You should sleep now, Kyungsoo. It’s a school night after all,” his father said, looking at him over his reading glasses.

“Maybe after this show,” Kyungsoo mumbled. He wasn’t ready to sleep. He didn’t want to sleep with the dream still clinging to the back of his mind, even though he knew he would pay dearly for staying up so late once he had to wake up later at six to go to school.

His father put the newspaper aside, taking his glasses off. “Is something wrong, Kyungsoo?” he frowned, features wrinkling with worry. Kyungsoo glanced at his father and shook his head.

“I know last night has been...kinda tough on you. It was for all of us, I mean. None of us had ever seen a thunderstorm like the one last night. But it’s alright now because we made it out just fine, didn’t we, Kyungsoo? So don’t worry about it,” his father said reassuringly. How Kyungsoo wished his anxieties were so easily appeased.

“I’m not worried about the thunderstorm coming back again or something, I just—I had like a bad dream last night and I don’t feel like sleeping just yet,” Kyungsoo mumbled, watching the images on TV flicker from scene to scene.

His father gave him a pitied look. “You could sleep with the light on tonight, if you want. I won’t tell your mother,” he suggested.

Kyungsoo laughed weakly, sitting up straight on the sofa. He wasn’t six anymore, and though leaving the lights on sounded like a good idea, it wouldn’t help Kyungsoo very much. At some point he had to grow up; he was sixteen for God’s sake.

“I’ll go to sleep now. Without the lights on,” Kyungsoo added, getting up. It had been a pretty long day, finishing up his homework with his friends and then running around the park screaming when Chanyeol found a caterpillar to play with. Tomorrow, he’d go back to school, resume his daily routine and the dream would just fade away like every other dream.

He went about his bathroom routine for a few minutes, then turned out the lights upstairs to head into his room.

His father bade him good night and he did the same too, closing the door after his father entered the master bedroom. Kyungsoo looked around his room after shutting the door; nothing had changed, still. His books were still on his desk where he had left them, his encyclopaedia still sat at the edge of his bed and his towel still hung over the back of his chair. _What were you expecting?_ He chided himself. Of course everything still looked the same.

Kyungsoo changed into his pyjamas, an old ratty tee and some long pyjama pants his mother bought at Tesco, nothing too fancy. He grabbed his phone from the desk to charge at his dresser by the bed and reluctantly turned out the lights, darkness blanketing the room at once.

 _Nothing to be afraid of,_ he told himself. Moonlight shone eerily from his window. 

Jumping into bed a little faster than he would admit, Kyungsoo pulled the covers over himself and grabbed his phone again, unlocking it to look through his notifications just before he went to sleep. There were some messages from a group chat with his friends (none that required him to reply), some friend requests he accepted and deleted as well as reminders he’d set to complete his English and Math homework. Clearing them all away, he put his phone back on the dresser and laid in bed, breathing evenly.

Kyungsoo tried not to think of scary thoughts like a monster lurking under his bed or nails scratching his window. It was relatively easy; all he had to do was count sheep and soon, he found himself relaxing into the soft mattress of his bed, head lolling to the right.

He was just about to drop off at the count of fifty sheep when he heard it; footsteps.

 _It’s nothing_ , he thought, partly because he was too tired to really care at this point and also because if it was a robber or ghost, whatever, Kyungsoo just wanted to sleep through it. He’d worry about it in the morning instead of get up now and hallucinate about something again.

But things never really went Kyungsoo’s way all the time. Even though he could feel himself drifting to sleep, he could _still_ hear footsteps, slow and heavy outside his room. It didn’t sound like the way his father would walk; the footsteps sounded like the person was dragging his feet as he walked. Kyungsoo’s father was a nimble man who always had a bit of poise.

He ignored it anyway. Kyungsoo was close to falling asleep now—

A hand clamped over his mouth and Kyungsoo’s eyes flew open in surprise, expecting it to be a kidnapper.

He didn’t get a chance to see anything except his entire room whirling around in a blur as he was flung over upside down helplessly over someone’s shoulder and watch stairs suddenly appear dangerously close to his face. Dimly, he noted the scent of brimstone and earth was back again. Kyungsoo could find neither the energy nor the breath in himself to scream for some reason, dangling limply like a rag doll as his kidnapper took him away, out of his house and into the cool night so fast he almost couldn’t believe it. But he was wide awake now, that was for sure, and this wasn’t a dream. 

The smell of wet grass filled Kyungsoo’s nose and he took a deep breath, preparing himself to scream for help. He really didn’t want to die like this without his parents knowing what had happened in the night.

But again, he wasn’t given the chance to scream. It was like his kidnapper knew he was going to scream a split second before he did and lowered him to the ground quickly, his toes digging into soft earth. Darkness enveloped them in its cool embrace. Kyungsoo battered the guy, the woman, whoever it was with his hands and legs but his kidnapper didn’t seem to notice it.

It took Kyungsoo a second before he realized the assailant was doing something—rubbing, caressing?(He didn’t know) —himself over his entire body like a cat would play with its prey before eating it. He laid there on the wet grass, unsure what to do other than frown in confusion. Then a face loomed over into his view and he came face to face with green eyes, nose and lips belonging to a boy, one that he did not know.

Kyungsoo scrambled backwards like a crab away from the boy, backing up against a tree. The boy with greenish eyes like a cat’s stared at him before leaping across the distance between them and pressed himself uncomfortably close to Kyungsoo, mouth brushing over Kyungsoo’s neck.

“Ew, what the fuck are you doing, _stop_ ,” Kyungsoo pushed him away in disgust and mild fear, coming in contact with skin instead of clothes.

That was when Kyungsoo realized he had no clothes on and he was probably demented, otherwise he wouldn’t be doing such strange things to someone he didn’t know. The boy frowned at his reaction, coming close to him again. Kyungsoo held up his hand at him, expression stern.

“Don’t come any closer,” he said, “or I’ll scream.”

The boy almost went cross eyed staring at his hand before nipping on one of his fingers playfully with his mouth. Kyungsoo made an embarrassingly weird noise in his throat, backhanding the boy quickly. He didn’t even know what the fuck was going on anymore, if this boy had some weird intentions with him or if he was just someone in dire need of a psychiatrist.

“Don’t scream,” the boy suddenly spoke. Kyungsoo widened his eyes at him.

“You can talk?” he asked dumbly.

The boy nodded with a smile, inching closer to Kyungsoo and reaching out a hand to tap Kyungsoo gently. He touched the two bumps that were hidden under Kyungsoo’s tee and Kyungsoo swatted his hand away before they could sting.

“I gave you that,” the boy said, almost nonchalantly. Kyungsoo narrowed his eyes at him.

“Gave me what? You mean you know about the little marks on my neck here? Jesus, you creep, I’m gonna call the fucking cops on you—”

“I was hungry,” the boy said as if Kyungsoo hadn’t spoken, “and you were there, so I bit you. But I didn’t kill you because I didn’t want to.” Kyungsoo felt a little faint. The words hungry, bit, and kill echoed a little too loudly in his head and he struggled to understand how he had any connection to this... this freakish boy with green cat eyes.

“Your eyes are pretty,” Kyungsoo said without thinking, just to change the subject. Maybe if he kept him talking, the boy would let him go. He sat on his haunches close to Kyungsoo, watching him carefully under his green gaze.

“Are they? I’ve never seen them before,” the boy murmured.

“You’ve never seen your eyes before? What, you haven’t heard of a mirror?” Kyungsoo frowned. The boy smiled at him, staring a little too deeply into Kyungsoo’s eyes.

“I can see them now, if I stare into your eyes... But you’re afraid of me and you won’t let me come any closer,” the boy pouted. Kyungsoo thought he sounded disappointed but he wasn’t going to let him come close anytime soon, not if he was the one who had given Kyungsoo those weird bumps on his neck.

“What did you do to me last night? How did you unlock the back door? And how did you manage to make it look like nothing had happened? Who _are you_?” Kyungsoo demanded.

The boy finally looked nervous, shuffling a bit on his thighs. “I-I’m Jongin,” he mumbled.

“Jongin?” Kyungsoo repeated. He nodded, looking down.

“Jongin is your name?” Kyungsoo asked. He’d never heard of anyone named Jongin in this town. Still, he had a name now. He could tell his parents and friends about this boy named Jongin if he ever managed to escape this alive.

“My name is Jongin,” he nodded, looking up at Kyungsoo shyly. “Okay. How did you give me those weird little bumps?” Kyungsoo asked, unconsciously fingering it.

“I bit you,” Jongin replied at once, “last night, at the stairs. You fainted, so I had to carry you back into bed.” There was no remorse, no guilt in his voice, as if what he had done was a necessity. Kyungsoo was pretty sure Jongin had broken a few laws last night even though he didn’t seem to feel sorry.

“W-why did you bite me?” Kyungsoo asked.

Jongin hesitated, then said, “I was hungry, like I said. I haven’t had any blood in a long time—”

“Blood?” Kyungsoo’s voice rose in volume. Jongin moved in a flash, sitting on Kyungsoo heavily and covering Kyungsoo’s mouth with his hand while he struggled to get away from Jongin. What the fuck did he want with his blood for Christ’s sake—

“Let me explain, please,” Jongin pleaded softly.

“Mmfrmrgghmmhrrmggh,” Kyungsoo mumbled under his hand, glaring at him. Jongin removed his hand cautiously, hovering it over Kyungsoo’s mouth.

“There’s nothing to explain!” Kyungsoo hissed,“You want to eat me, don’t you, or at least you think you do. Well, you better kill me before you do because I swear to God, Jongin, you’re dead meat if my parents ever get a hold of this,” Kyungsoo threatened. He was more frightened than he let on but Jongin didn’t have to know that. And instead of getting angry with Kyungsoo, Jongin just seemed... upset.

“But I don’t want you to be scared of me, Kyungsoo, I-I want to be your friend,” Jongin mumbled. Kyungsoo felt rather than saw Jongin’s cheeks redden with embarrassment as that statement sunk in.

Friends? What kind of person in their right mind tried to make friends with people with no clothes on in the dead of night?

“You know, you’re very confusing,” Kyungsoo frowned at him.

Jongin sighed heavily, getting off him. “If you don’t want to be my friend then I suppose it’s alright,” he sulked, already moving back towards the trees. Alarmed, Kyungsoo tried to grab him before realizing there was no shirt or jeans he could grab and had to crawl after Jongin, tugging at his arm.

“ _Jongin_ ,” Kyungsoo enunciated his name, forcing him to meet his gaze. His eyes glittered like gems even though there was hardly any light in the woods. They were very distracting (so was his state of nudity but he didn’t want to linger on that), and Kyungsoo tried not to let himself feel affected at the way Jongin’s eyes drooped in disappointment. 

“If you— If you want to be my friend, Jongin, then you have to tell me everything first. Friends don’t keep secrets from each other... right?” he added nervously, trying to smile at Jongin. Kyungsoo knew better than to be on friendly terms with Jongin but he did want the truth from him first.

 _Maybe I can get him to stop breaking in if he thinks we’re friends_ , Kyungsoo thought. Jongin brightened up considerably, turning his body to face Kyungsoo again.

“You’ll be my friend?” he asked excitedly.

“I will if it’ll get you to put on some clothes and stop breaking into my house,” Kyungsoo blurted tetchily. He widened his eyes at how harsh that sounded but Jongin was unfazed, clinging to Kyungsoo’s arm and rattling it the way Baekhyun would when he got his way with Kyungsoo.

Jongin nodded eagerly. “I’ll stop if you want me to. I only wanted you to come out here in the first place.”

Kyungsoo stopped himself from narrowing his eyes in suspicion and just started to get up and walk towards his home. “Right. Well, can we just sit by the porch and talk? I don’t want my pyjamas to get wet,” he said.

Jongin followed him, snatching up Kyungsoo’s hand in his. He didn’t mind, so long as Jongin wasn’t rubbing up on him like a horny kitten.

He sat down on the first step of the porch, patting for Jongin to sit beside him. Kyungsoo felt a little cold outside, but he didn’t want to risk going into his home and have Jongin follow him. So he just wrapped his arms around himself and looked at Jongin, secretly admiring his eyes. If Jongin had been a cat, Kyungsoo would’ve petted him.

“You should tell me why you’re here in the first place, I think. That’s probably a great way to start,” Kyungsoo said.

“I’ve always been here,” Jongin replied, matter of fact.

“If that’s true then why is this the first time I’m speaking to you? Unless you’ve been lurking in the trees all these years and finally decided to come out last night,” Kyungsoo said, unable to help himself.

Jongin looked surprised. “That is exactly what I’ve been doing, Kyungsoo. Didn’t you notice the tree?” he asked, pointing at the blacken tree.

“How d’you know my name?” Kyungsoo said, ignoring the tree. Jongin lowered his hand, blinking innocently at him.

“Your friend calls you that. And your mother. It fits you,” Jongin said, then blushed bashfully.

Kyungsoo didn’t like where this conversation was going. From what he could gather, it sounded like Jongin had been stalking him for some time. How was it that he never noticed Jongin till now?

“And you heard it from where and when, exactly?” Kyungsoo asked slowly.

Jongin pointed at the tree again. This time Kyungsoo did look at the tree, thinking there was something he’d missed but he couldn’t see anything besides the blackened trunk and small, broken branches scattered over its gnarly roots.

“I was trapped in there,” Jongin said wistfully, voice softer. “I don’t know how long I was in there, but it was long enough to see you play and study with your friends.” Kyungsoo struggled to keep a straight face, looking at Jongin questioningly.

“Are you telling me that you’ve been trapped in that... _tree_?” Kyungsoo almost couldn’t say it.

Jongin said yes, expression serious. Kyungsoo gurgled wordlessly at him, waiting for him to say it was a joke. He didn’t.

“Jongin, no one gets trapped in trees, first of all—”

“But I did,” Jongin said solemnly, “and it was very real. I couldn’t move inside but I could see the trees around me, this house, and a bit of the sky...” Well, that blew off Kyungsoo’s theories of what the bumps had been on the tree trunk. They must’ve been Jongin’s limbs after all, though he was lacking wings...

Kyungsoo also found that it sounded a lot like the dream he had the night before. He wondered if Jongin had somehow shown him a part of his memories when he... _when he bit me_ , Kyungsoo finished the thought with a shudder.  And that led to another question waiting to be answered.

“So when you came out?”

“The thunder struck the tree, which freed me somehow. I don’t think I was ever supposed to be free from it but now I am. Just in time too,” Jongin smiled.

 _Just in time for what?_ Kyungsoo thought.

No, that could wait for later; he couldn’t be distracted from a far more important question. “Okay, so the thunder struck the tree which freed you, and you came into my house... because you were hungry. And you haven’t had blood for a while. I take it that you’re not human then?” Kyungsoo asked.

Jongin turned sullen at that, shaking his head reluctantly. “...No. For a long time I thought I was. My mother always fed me her blood when I was younger; I thought that was what everyone did, too. And then she died, so I had to find my own food...” he trailed off silently.

“Did you tick off the wrong person?” Kyungsoo guessed. A vampire child would certainly get caught easily, anyone could guess that.

Jongin nodded once shyly. “There was a man who didn’t like my mother. He used to live just beyond these woods too, in a blue house with a—”

“Green roof?” Kyungsoo interrupted. It sounded like Chanyeol’s house, though Kyungsoo never knew it had been that way since... since when?

“How old are you, Jongin? How long has all of this happened?” Kyungsoo asked suddenly. Jongin exhaled through his mouth, frowning as he counted back the years under his breath. “It was 1901 when I was trapped, so I’ve been here for,” he shrugged.

A shiver ran down Jongin’s spine. “You’ve been trapped in that tree for _a hundred and fifteen years?”_ Kyungsoo’s voice dropped to a whisper.

“If you say so. It doesn’t feel that long,” Jongin said absently.

Good God. Jongin wasn’t as young as he looked. In fact, he looked like he could be Kyungsoo’s age or maybe even slightly younger but those years trapped in the tree certainly gave Jongin a head start on the age gap.

“So this happened in 1901, and this guy just like, throws you in the tree for the heck of it?” Kyungsoo said, holding his hands to his head in case it exploded.

“Well, he was a warlock so it was easier than it sounds. He put me in there instead of my mother because she had already passed when he found me so...” Jongin tilted his head to one side, “I didn’t mind taking my mother’s place,actually. It would’ve been much harder for me to accept that my mother was trapped in a tree than if she died a natural death.”

“Natural death? Don’t vampires live forever?” Kyungsoo wrinkled his nose.

Jongin blinked. He chuckled, shaking his head as he spoke, “I’m not a full-fledged vampire, Kyungsoo. Neither is my mother. We are _dhampir_ , half human and half vampire.” Kyungsoo had never heard of them.

“So _dhampirs_ need blood to survive. Anything else?” Kyungsoo asked.

“We have our own small abilities. We’re not susceptible to the sun, for one, and I don’t need to feed like a regular vampire. Just a little bit every once in a while is enough for me,” Jongin said with a reassuring smile. Kyungsoo felt slightly indignant that Jongin had taken his blood without his explicit permission but perhaps they could talk about that later.

“We don’t live as long as vampires though, but we do live longer than humans. Eventually, we all still die.”

“And you’re creepily quiet and strong like a vampire too,” Kyungsoo added. Jongin laughed, nodding at that. “Yes, that’s true,” he agreed.

“So in short, you have all the strengths of a vampire and all the weaknesses of a human, is that correct?” Kyungsoo said. Jongin told him yes, that was pretty much it, and Kyungsoo was about to feign sleepiness and perhaps go back into his room to search up _dhampir_ online when Jongin said, “Tell me about you, Kyungsoo,” in the most charming voice Kyungsoo had heard.

He sounded genuinely interested, though why he would be Kyungsoo wouldn’t know. He was the most boring person he knew. Baekhyun or Chanyeol would probably be much better at this.

“Um, there isn’t much to know about me,” Kyungsoo began, laughing nervously. What the hell could he say? The obvious things Jongin probably knew, like his age, name, hobbies...

Kyungsoo blushed. If he knew a person was stuck in the tree this entire time, he probably wouldn’t have spent so much time by the woods doing things there, like reading or doing his homework or that one time he tried a hand at drawing (he was terrible).

“You can tell me only what you want me to know. I don’t expect you to tell me your secrets,” Jongin teased. Kyungsoo laughed nervously again, scratching the back of his neck.

“Um... Oh, I don’t know. I’m in my first year of high school, I guess. I’ve lived here since I was 8, I think and you probably know that. I like reading more than playing sports and my friends are annoying sometimes, which is why I sit out here a lot by myself.”

Jongin listened eagerly, paying close attention to Kyungsoo. “Do you like boys?” Jongin asked.

Kyungsoo stopped and blushed at the question, prickling uncomfortably beside Jongin. “Y-yeah, I guess,” he stammered, looking away from him.

Jongin bit back on a smile. “Just thought I’d make sure,” he said.

_*_

Kyungsoo stayed away from the woods behind his house the next day.

He went over to Baekhyun’s house on purpose to do his homework because he knew he couldn’t possibly concentrate,knowing that Jongin was just hiding somewhere in the trees. Of course, add that to the fact that he hardly got any sleep the night before, and though he was ultimately intrigued by Jongin, he still had shit to do.

And try as he might, he couldn’t bring himself to tell his friend about the boy with green eyes he’d met the night before. They would think he was crazy, or even worse, try to see Jongin with their own eyes and Kyungsoo didn’t know what sort of consequences could come from that. So he said nothing.

It was about seven p.m. before he finally returned home for dinner, avoiding the kitchen like the plague.

Kyungsoo couldn’t bear to see if Jongin was there among the trees. In truth, he didn’t know why he wanted to avoid him either. Jongin had done almost nothing to Kyungsoo, had shown no signs of potentially hurting him in any way. The only thing he could say for sure was that Jongin stirred up something inside of him, something that made him want to pet him like a kitten and at the same time keep him at arm’s length. For now, the latter seemed like the best thing to do. Better to stay away than to lead Jongin on into something that might not be there.

As if on auto-pilot, Kyungsoo ate his dinner obediently, took a shower and soon went to bed at an appropriate time after packing his bags for school. There was an uneasy feeling weighing heavily in his heart despite his reasoning.

He felt bad for leaving Jongin, a person, all alone out there in the night (with no clothes on too), magical creature or not. There was seemingly nothing much he could actually do for Jongin.

 _Other than give him my blood, that is,_ Kyungsoo thought.

He realized it was a lot like feeding a stray, informally conditioning it return and wait for you to feed it again after the first time. Kyungsoo also knew that it wasn’t a good thing to feed and nurture a stray if he had no intention of keeping it.

And it wasn’t like he didn’t want to keep Jongin either, it was just... complicated. Kyungsoo sighed in bed. There was no helping it.

Kyungsoo tried to sleep first. It easier said than done; he only managed to sneak in two hours of troubled sleep before he got out of bed, grabbing some old clothes from his closet and creeped down the stairs, out of the back door and into the woods, calling Jongin’s name in a loud whisper.

“Jongin? Jongin, are you still here?” he hissed. He didn’t want to stay out too late tonight, just hand Jongin some clothes to wear and maybe make sure he was alright.

There was a rustle on his left. He thought it was a squirrel at first, before Jongin lopped forth from the darkness, arms wrapping around Kyungsoo and lifting him up into a tight hug. Kyungsoo gurgled and sputtered against Jongin’s naked chest, inhaling his strange scent of brimstone and earth.

“Put me down, Jongin,” Kyungsoo managed to say.

“You weren’t home for such a long time. I missed you,” Jongin said, voice sincere. It warmed Kyungsoo’s chest that Jongin had been waiting for him, but it also made him feel guilty for avoiding him on purpose all day.

Kyungsoo pulled away from Jongin’s bear hug forcefully, stammering as he spoke, “I c-can’t stay out tonight for too long, Jongin. I just wanted to see if you were alright and to give you these,” Kyungsoo pushed him clothes into Jongin’s hands without meeting his gaze. “I don’t know if you get cold, but I think you deserve some clothes anyway.”

“T-thank you,” Jongin said in surprise, taking the clothes from Kyungsoo. “I would be wearing clothes normally but they burned away when the thunder hit the tree...” he sounded embarrassed, but Kyungsoo told him not to worry about it.

“Stuff happens,” he shrugged nonchalantly, blushing hard in the darkness.

He didn’t know if Jongin could hear the way his heart was beating in his chest or the rush of blood in Kyungsoo’s ears.  For a boy who lived for over a hundred years, Jongin was so naive and sweet it almost broke Kyungsoo’s heart even though he was supposed to feel nothing for him.

“I forgot you had to wake up early this morning. I’m sorry I kept you up,” Jongin said apologetically while shaking out Kyungsoo’s clothes. Kyungsoo had taken a pair of sweatpants that were too large for him and a loose free size t-shirt he’d gotten for free when he joined a walkathon two years back. They gave him size L for some bizarre reason when Kyungsoo was clearly a size S. Anyway, it was worth keeping them; Jongin put them on and Kyungsoo could finally breathe now that all his important bits were covered up.

“It’s fine. I was the one who wanted to know what you were doing here and all that,” Kyungsoo said, stretching his arms over his head with a yawn.

Jongin lifted a hand tobrush some hair away from Kyungsoo’s eyes. He flinched from Jongin’s hand without thinking, and then grimaced when the light went out behind Jongin’s green eyes. “S-sorry. You had some hair in your eyes, that’s all,” he mumbled.

Kyungsoo made an awkward noise in his throat, unsure what to say. He wanted to go back to sleep already since he still had school tomorrow, but he didn’t want to leave Jongin alone either. His sad green eyes made him want to stay with him till he brightened up again but _God, this is infuriating_ , Kyungsoo thought, running his hands through his hair in frustration.

Jongin just stood there, blinking expectantly at Kyungsoo. 

“I-I should probably go now. It’s late and I have to be up again later in the morning,” Kyungsoo said lamely. Jongin nodded understandingly, to Kyungsoo’s disappointment. He wanted something more from Jongin, he wanted to give more to him too but what, he didn’t know. 

Kyungsoo hesitated only for a second before he walked away robotically, practically forcing himself up the steps of his porch and into his house. He shut the back door behind him quietly, then he peeked out to see if Jongin had already retreated back in the woods.

Jongin stood exactly where Kyungsoo had left him, waving goodbye at him.

“Shit,” Kyungsoo muttered under his breath. _I’m going to regret this_ , he thought. Flinging the door open again, he waved for Jongin to come over, unable to believe what he was about to do. Jongin didn’t need to be told twice; he hurried over and stood at the very edge of Kyungsoo’s back door, inches away from him.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

“Come upstairs with me,” Kyungsoo mumbled, stepping aside. Jongin’s mouth dropped open slightly in total surprise, green eyes shining bright.

“You heard me right,” Kyungsoo scowled when Jongin didn’t move from the doorframe. He took Jongin’s hand and tugged him in, keeping a hold on him while he relocked the back door. Jongin stood as still as a statue beside Kyungsoo, his posture tense.

“I thought you said—” Kyungsoo swiftly placed a finger over Jongin’s lips. “My parents are sleeping upstairs,” he whispered. Kyungsoo started to pull Jongin towards the stairs but not before Jongin resisted, bare feet staying rooted to the spot.

“You said I couldn’t come in,” Jongin whispered, a frown upon his face.

Kyungsoo smiled, laughing a little at his expression. Maybe Jongin wasn’t an angel like Kyungsoo initially thought when he knew nothing of Jongin being trapped in the tree, but he certainly acted like one. “I know I did. But you’re my friend now, so you can come in,” he said, “just promise you won’t leave the room.”

Jongin nodded tersely, gripping Kyungsoo’s hand in his rough, calloused fingers. “I promise.”

“Good.”

Finally, Jongin allowed Kyungsoo to lead him up the stairs, guide him to his bedroom and waited for him to shut his bedroom door. Kyungsoo wasn’t sure where Jongin wanted to sleep, on the floor seemed kind of rude, and on the bed felt... weird.

“Where do you um. Where do you wanna sleep?” Kyungsoo asked. His mother always said a guest in the house had a right to choose where they wanted to sleep, after all.

Jongin pointed at the bed, beaming at Kyungsoo. “Here. With you, please,” he murmured. Kyungsoo blushed at the expectant note in his voice and the way his heart skipped a beat. Though Jongin had never harmed him, the fear of him biting Kyungsoo again tugged at the back of his mind. And yet, Kyungsoo couldn’t honestly he didn’t want Jongin on the bed either.

“Come here then,” Kyungsoo said, climbing onto his bed and flipping back the covers. If he died, at least he would know who killed him. Jongin scampered over like a child, waiting for Kyungsoo to settle in first before he slipped his own feet delicately under the covers and tucked it over their chins.

Jongin didn’t reach for Kyungsoo (thank the Lord for old school manners), though his breath fanned over Kyungsoo’s face gently. He was so close that Kyungsoo almost couldn’t believe he was real and lying on the same pillow beside him, looking at Kyungsoo with his green eyes. Jongin’s strange scent of a low burning fire and damp earth lulled him over, calm settling over his mind.

“Good night,” Kyungsoo mumbled.

Jongin’s mouth curled into a small smile, “Good night. Sleep well,” he whispered.

Kyungsoo succumbed to sleep quickly. He didn’t dream of much, but he thought he felt fingers tracing over his cheek, a whispered confession pressed to his ear.

*

A week passed like that with Kyungsoo inviting Jongin to sleep once his parents shut their bedroom door for the night.

Some days he burned the midnight oil, finishing school projects or homework that he couldn’t quite figure out during the day. Other days he read his favourite storiesout loud to Jongin, from classic fairy tales to modern fiction.

Jongin was awed by it all; he told Kyungsoo thathe never went to school, and couldn’t read or write. But he could speak, sometimes with his eyes more than his mouth, and Kyungsoo could some kind of emotion flickering in the depths of his green irises when he caught Jongin staring silently at him. He tried not to look too closely.

There was one night where Jongin asked him in a low, quiet voice, if he could bite him. He was hungry again, and Kyungsoo relented only after a moment’s hesitation. It didn’t hurt like the first time; it just felt like he was sharing more than time and space with Jongin. Like he was sharing a little part of himself that could keep Jongin alive, so long as they stayed together.

Jongin took enough to make Kyungsoo feel woozy in the head and weak all over, but he didn’t mind. Jongin made him feel warm and safe despite the fact that he could’ve killed him if he didn’t stop himself from drinking Kyungsoo dry.

*

One Saturday night, Kyungsoo left his bed and tiptoed down the stairs to the back door as usual. Usually, all he needed to do was leave the door open for a few seconds and Jongin would scramble out of the trees eagerly, bounding right into Kyungsoo’s home.

However, tonight was different. Kyungsoo waited an entire minute with his blanket over his shoulders, shivering slightly from the cold.

Why wasn’t Jongin coming in? _Do I have to go get him?_ Kyungsoo frowned. He didn’t exactly mind it, but the night was colder than usual and he dreaded having to rustle through the woods to search for Jongin. Of all nights he chose to go AWOL it had to be the coldest one yet...

 _It_ would _be awfully nice to cuddle with Jongin later in bed though,_ Kyungsoo thought, a smile unconsciously forming on his lips. Oh yes, Kyungsoo was sure he’d be all nice and toasty warm with Jongin’s arms around him. Maybe they could stay up and listen to music—

 _Whoa wait, hold up_ , Kyungsoo frowned, stopping his train of thoughts. Jongin still hadn’t materialized from the woods but wait; what the fuck was Kyungsoo thinking about a second ago?

 _Cuddling_? With _Jongin_?

 _Shit, I’m in way too deep on this_ , he thought, putting on a pair of spare slippers to go out into the woods. Kyungsoo shut the door, leaving it unlocked since he was too lazy to look for a key. He pulled his blankets around him closer, looking up at the trees standing tall before him. They were still and unmoving in the cold. Not much had changed ever since Kyungsoo met Jongin; the old tree was still blackened, possibly charred to death.

It didn’t look like Jongin was lurking somewhere in the woods. Kyungsoo brushed a few fronds aside, peeking in. The woods were so dark at night Kyungsoo felt like he was staring at a black piece of cloth up close; where the hell was Jongin?

“Jongin?” he called.

Silence.

He stood there, waiting. There was no way Jongin couldn’t have heard that; Kyungsoo called out loud enough to probably wake a few squirrels. He prickled uncomfortably under the blanket. Did something happen to Jongin?

 _Guess there’s no cuddling tonight_ , Kyungsoo thought forlornly. Maybe Jongin was feeling a little nostalgic and had left the woods to go look at Chanyeol’s house. Kyungsoo was sure he wasn’t hurt; Jongin was certainly much more durable than he was. Sometime during the week he’d said that he’d done a little bit of exploring while Kyungsoo was at school; Jongin didn’t like the new world all that much.

Still, maybe he was so bored he decided to look around Kyungsoo’s town before he finally found something interesting enough. Kyungsoo had to remind himself that Jongin was still a person despite his glimmering eyes and odd quirks. Perhaps he wanted some time alone.

Kyungsoo tried not to feel disappointed as he shut the door and locked it as slow as possible, peeking through the translucent curtain to see if Jongin would suddenly pop out of the woods.

“Kyungsoo? What are you doing?”

He whirled around, holding a hand to his chest defensively. It was his dad standing blearily at the bottom of the staircase, pyjamas all wrinkled. Kyungsoo was so absorbed in his thoughts he hadn’t heard his father coming down the stairs. “I thought I heard something down here. Did you see something outside?” he frowned at Kyungsoo.

Kyungsoo blushed at his own defensive reaction then relaxed his posture, shuffling towards the stairs.

“Nah, there’s nothing out there. It must’ve been my imagination.”

-

In the morning, Kyungsoo’s disappointment slowly melted away into warmth, a hand carding through his hair as he slept. At first, he thought it was his mother whispering in his ear to wake up, but he soon recognized the voice and it didn’t belong to her.

He opened his eyes and locked gazes with Jongin’s intense green eyes, clouded with worry. Kyungsoo stretched, groaning low in his throat.

“I’m sorry to wake you,” Jongin apologized in a soft voice.

Dim morning light spilled through the curtains pulled over the window across Kyungsoo’s bed. He could hear birds chirping faintly somewhere outside. _It must be early_ , Kyungsoo thought, struggling to sit up in bed. For some reason, Jongin had this anxious expression on his face that made Kyungsoo feel a little sick; mornings were never his forte.

“What’s wrong? What happened last night? Why weren’t you...?” Kyungsoo trailed off, rubbing his eyes with one hand and pointing vaguely towards the woods outside his window.

“I woke you up to explain things, Kyungsoo,” Jongin said gently, taking his hand in his rough ones. Kyungsoo nodded numbly once, not really listening as he stared down at their contrastingly different hands. Jongin was so tan, so beautiful with his green eyes and earnest heart... 

“...Kyungsoo, I’m leaving,” Jongin stated.

He looked up slowly at Jongin, eyebrows furrowing together. It was still early, why did Jongin have to leave? Kyungsoo missed him during the night, Jongin and his warmth.

“Why?” Kyungsoo mumbled, mouth dry. He could taste his disgusting morning breath in the back of his throat. Jongin gripped his hand tightly, sighing heavily. He reached a hand forward to caress Kyungsoo’s hair once more and his cheek, tipping Kyungsoo’s chin up. Kyungsoo had never felt so confused in the morning.

“I couldn’t be with you last night because I went looking through the neighbourhood, Kyungsoo,” Jongin said, smiling sadly, “it’s a nice place now. I don’t know why I thought it wasn’t, at first. It fits you and your quiet life, Kyungsoo. And I feel wrong to force myself into your heart and the life you have here.”

Kyungsoo didn’t like the sound of that. It sounded like he was saying goodbye.

“You’re not forcing anything, stupid,” Kyungsoo mumbled. He tried to pull Jongin closer; if they laid down now they could still sleep another couple more hours—

“W-wait, Kyungsoo, I... I have to say this even though it pains me to do it,” Jongin resisted. Kyungsoo stopped, curling his toes underneath the blanket.

“What is it that you wanna say?” he grumbled angrily.

“Kyungsoo, please don’t be angry with me. I h-hope you understand what I’m about to say... I— I found the warlock who trapped me in the tree last night,” Jongin choked out the words, as if he couldn’t bear to say them before Kyungsoo.

“So?” Kyungsoo didn’t understand. How did that have to do with anything about Jongin leaving? And how long would he be gone?

“Well, I didn’t find him exactly but I did find a clue in his old house that indicated where he might be now. He’s moved to the Antarctica, and he left a message in the old warlock’s language in case his friends wanted to pay him a visit. I suppose I really was meant to stay in the tree forever,” Jongin tried to smile. Kyungsoo couldn’t find it in himself to smile.

“So you wanna go to the Antarctica, is that? Do you know how far away that is?” Kyungsoo said. He didn’t want Jongin to leave. What if he never came back, or get himself trapped under ice instead of a tree this time? Who would free him then?

“I do know, but I’m not a fool. I can take care of myself and I want to confront this warlock once and for all. I want to make sure he won’t ever bother me again, now that I’ve found something to protect,” Jongin said, brushing his thumb over Kyungsoo’s lower lip. His heart skipped a beat when he heard what Jongin said.

“And what’s that?” Kyungsoo asked. Jongin smiled, green eyes creasing into green crescents.

“I think you know what, or more specifically, who it is. It’s you, Kyungsoo. Now that I’m free, he’s bound to notice it sooner or later, and I want to make sure he’ll never come near us or hurt you before I come to you as—” Jongin hesitated.

“As someone who is more than a friend. I want to be more than just a friend to you, Kyungsoo. Will you... will you accept me?” Jongin asked, meeting Kyungsoo’s bewildered gaze steadily.

“Y-you— even if I accept, what if you don’t come back, Jongin? What if you just leave and you die or something and I’d never know—” Jongin placed a finger over Kyungsoo’s lips, hushing his loud protests.

“I _will_ come back, Kyungsoo. I always will come home, to you,” Jongin whispered, leaning forward to nuzzle Kyungsoo’s neck gently. He pressed a small kiss over the fading bite marks he’d left on Kyungsoo a few nights ago and pulled back to look at him, solemnity in his green cat eyes.

“You’re going to leave me... for how long?” Kyungsoo asked, threading his fingers between Jongin’s.

“I will come back as soon as I can. I don’t know how long it will take to get there, or how long it will take to find him but I promise I will make it up to you, Kyungsoo. If you’ll have me, I want you to be mine for as long as we both shall live,” Jongin whispered, taking Kyungsoo’s other hand and wrapping their fingers together.

He leaned forward and pushed Kyungsoo gently back onto his pillow, mouth hovering close to Kyungsoo’s lips. “Say you’ll keep me, Kyungsoo, and I’ll stay when I get back,” Jongin murmured.

Tears stung Kyungsoo’s eyes. He wanted Jongin to stay now, not to leave and possibly never come back. Promises were only words, after all. Kyungsoo just wanted Jongin.

“You promise you’ll come back, Jongin?” he asked, looking into his eyes.

“I promise,” Jongin said solemnly. He bent down to kiss Kyungsoo, a gentle brush of the lips over his mouth. Kyungsoo closed his eyes, feeling his tears roll down his cheeks. He gripped Jongin’s hands tightly, trying to register every sensation, everything his senses could tell him from the golden glint in Jongin’s eyes whenever sunlight lit up those green depths to the unchanging musk of fire and earth, of the woods Kyungsoo always knew and loved. Kyungsoo didn’t know how he felt yet about Jongin but he knew for a fact that he didn’t want him to leave, ever.

“Don’t forget me, Jongin,” Kyungsoo murmured, trying to hold back his sobs when Jongin pulled back briefly. “If you find that you don’t want to come back because you’ve found someone better, just please don’t ever forget me—”

“Never,” Jongin growled, wrapping a hand around Kyungsoo’s neck. His thumb pressed into the bite marks on Kyungsoo’s neck possessively, as if with his touch he could leave them there forever, a brand upon his skin. “You are the only memory I never want to forget,” he whispered in his ear.

A thump through the wall behind Kyungsoo’s bed alerted them both that Kyungsoo’s parents were awake. Jongin tensed, looking down at Kyungsoo.

“Don’t leave yet,” Kyungsoo whispered urgently, fresh new tears spilling over his eyes.

Jongin removed his hand from Kyungsoo’s neck, eyes trailing down to the red-blue pulse beating frantically beneath the skin of Kyungsoo’s throat. Kyungsoo could already guess what Jongin was going to ask of him.

“Can I... one last time?” Jongin said, placing his hand over Kyungsoo’s heart.

“Yes, Jongin. Just do it,” Kyungsoo nodded.

Jongin wasted no time; he bit down on Kyungsoo hard, less gentle than the last time he did it. They both could hear Kyungsoo’s parents moving around in the next room. Any minute now, and they might walk in onto the both of them at the bed. He didn’t ease his sharp teeth in like before, just dug them deep through Kyungsoo’s skinand veins, taking his blood into his mouth.

The ceiling wavered above Kyungsoo; he could tell Jongin was in a hurry and was taking a lot at once. For a brief moment, Kyungsoo thought maybe Jongin would kill him, suck him dry till he was nothing but a husk; yet he felt no fear of death, not anymore.

He suddenly pulled away, leaving a trickle of blood dripping from his mouth down onto Kyungsoo’s clothes. Jongin touched a hand to his mouth, looking a little dazed. Kyungsoo could tell it was his first time to engorge himself like that on so much blood; the surprise was evident in his face.

Kyungsoo felt cold and weak but it didn’t stop him from grabbing at Jongin and throwing his arms around his wide shoulders, tears soaking into his shirt. 

“I’ll wait till you come back,” he whispered. Jongin tugged him back roughly to kiss him full on the mouth, blood smearing all over their chins. His tongue flicked into Kyungsoo’s mouth briefly, giving him a taste of his own coppery blood. Kyungsoo kissed him back harder, holding him close.

Just as suddenly as he came, Jongin had to leave, pulling away from Kyungsoo hastily as he heard Kyungsoo’s mother approach Kyungsoo’s room.

Jongin climbed nimbly out of the window despite Kyungsoo’s faint sobs tugging at his heartstrings. He dropped to the porch eight feet below him just in time; Kyungsoo’s mother entered the room to find her son crying with blood all over his clothes. Jongin looked up at his window one more time, just as he did over the years. He would miss Kyungsoo and the taste of his blood on his lips.

 


	3. don't be kind to me, honey, don't feed me (I will come back)

Kyungsoo laughed, throwing the confetti from the ground at Baekhyun’s face.

He jerked away from Kyungsoo with a loud squeal, confetti fluttering onto his hair and settling over his shoulders delicately. Yixing and Jongdae joined in, cupping more confetti over Baekhyun’s head, causing him to squeal even louder. Chanyeol smiled like the proud boyfriend he was a few feet away, grinning at all of them.

“Happy birthday!” Kyungsoo yelled again.

Baekhyun was finally eighteen, the last of the five of them to come of legal age. They had been plotting behind his back for months on end, trying to set a time and place, a budget for his presents and everything else so it would be perfect for him. Kyungsoo couldn’t think of a better way to celebrate Baekhyun’s birthday than this, with his closest friends and special friend, Chanyeol (they had become more than just friends about a year ago) in the most familiar (and cheapest) place they all knew; Kyungsoo’s mother’s kitchen.

Even though Yixing was the latest addition to their small group, he was welcomed warmly by Kyungsoo and his parents as well into the house. They all got along as if they’d known each other for years, and today was no different.

“Okay, open up your presents,” Yixing said in his accented Korean. They all knew Baekhyun was more excited about presents than the birthday cake sitting on the counter. Baekhyun wriggled his fingers gleefully.

“I’ll eat the cake after the presents,” Baekhyun smiled wryly at Kyungsoo. He shrugged nonchalantly; Baekhyun was the birthday boy after all.

Yixing pushed the collection of boxes wrapped up neatly by Kyungsoo the night before, after they had passed him Baekhyun’s gifts secretly so he wouldn’t think something was up till he came to Kyungsoo’s place. Baekhyun flicked some confetti away from his head, taking the largest box first from the counter. _Typical of him_ , Kyungsoo thought.

Chanyeol beamed at Baekhyun quietly, especially glad that Baekhyun chose his present first. “This is for my love,” Baekhyun read the card stuck on the box aloud.

“What is it?” Jongdae asked Kyungsoo.

“Oh God, you don’t wanna know,” Kyungsoo rolled his eyes in faint amusement.

Baekhyun went ooh and winked at Chanyeol. He set to ripping the wrapping paper off viciously, revealing a set of men’s cologne, lotion and shower gel along with a second box from Victoria’s Secret. Everyone hurriedly told him not to open that in front of them; no one wanted to know what sort of lingerie Chanyeol had gotten for Baekhyun.

“Come here, my baby giraffe,” Baekhyun opened his arms and legs wide. Chanyeol hugged him warmly, and Baekhyun wrapped himself around Chanyeol’s length like a koala clinging to a tree. Despite the shared look Kyungsoo sent to Jongdae and Yixing that portrayed their utter disgust at the two love birds, he was just a bit jealous on the inside of the love and affection they clearly had for one another. Kyungsoo could’ve had that too, if only _he_ never left.

 _Oh no, you don’t_ , Kyungsoo thought. He shook his melancholic thoughts away, pretending to brush his fringe to one side. He-who-shall-not-be-named had been gone for two years already; the memory of his green eyes with pupils slit like a cat’s had faded to the back of Kyungsoo’s mind like an old photograph. Kyungsoo didn’t want to think about him anymore. It was time to let go of the past even though some days he looked out of his window and stared at the old tree he used to love so much, wondering when its previous occupant would come back.

Even if Kyungsoo lay in bed every night, imagining his warm arms over his waist, He expected nothing from those green eyes and the promise made two years ago.

Kyungsoo suspected he must’ve found someone wherever he was now, as Kyungsoo always thought he would. Why else would he be gone for so long without so much as a letter or a sign to show that he still thought of Kyungsoo?

 _I’m not someone a guy like him comes back for,_ he smiled inwardly. But he was over it now, almost. If he didn’t think about it, then he could pretend nothing had happened.

“Oh wow,” Baekhyun exclaimed, bringing Kyungsoo back to reality. He had opened a second present and it was an electronic shaver from Yixing. Kyungsoo had given Yixing a thoroughly judgmental look; of all things to gift someone, why a shaver? Was he implying that Baekhyun was hairy?

But it didn’t seem to matter to Baekhyun; he took the shaver out of the box and turned it on at once, pressing it to his chin. He giggled at the sensation, holding it to Chanyeol’s chin too.

“It tickles,” Baekhyun laughed, “how am I supposed to use it if it tickles?”

They bantered playfully for a while, Jongdae pointing out bluntly that he obviously didn’t need a shaver for his face but his legs. Baekhyun threatened to cake Jongdae’s face if he said that again, and Chanyeol had to calm them down, snorting at the two of them.

“Look, why don’t we move this upstairs? You can open your presents in my room,” Kyungsoo suggested. At least there was no cake to destroy in his bedroom. The others shrugged in agreement. Kyungsoo shooed them off upstairs first to put the cake in the fridge for later. His parents weren’t in; they’d left to give them some privacy so Kyungsoo had to shoulder the responsibility in keeping the house clean.

“Jongdae, stop jabbing your finger up my ass,” Baekhyun screamed as he went up the stairs. He started running up and they all followed after like ten year old boys, giggling at one another. Kyungsoo shook his head at them, laughing under his breath.

He opened up the fridge, carrying the cake carefully with both hands from the counter to one of the lower shelves of the fridge. The icing was starting to melt, and he resisted the urge to swipe some cream just to taste.

It was quiet in the kitchen now but he could still hear his friends upstairs, slamming the door shut and moving around. A breeze blew gently outside the back door and the trees swayed, their leaves whispering to one another. Kyungsoo hadn’t been alone in the kitchen for quite some time now.

He shut the fridge firmly, looking around the counter to make sure there wasn’t anything left. Kyungsoo was about to head up the stairs when he caught something outside on his porch, the silhouette of someone achingly familiar.

 _No, it can’t be him_ , he thought, heart suddenly thudding loudly in his chest.

Kyungsoo’s hand went up to his neck subconsciously; there were two small puncture wounds that had scarred over and never really went away since the day he’d taken Kyungsoo’s blood. He had long given up hope of ever seeing him again, but... could it really be _him_ , standing on the porch?

Kyungsoo walked over to the back door as if he was in a dream just like that fateful night, twisting the knob with his shaking hands to open the back door. It had to be a figment of his imagination or a trick of light; he couldn’t be here, he-who-shall-not-be-named from two years ago.

“Kyungsoo?” he said cautiously, green eyes still bright as ever.

He looked different yet the same, standing there in clothes that Kyungsoo had never seen on him before. He was dressed in a black dress shirt and smart pants, looking very much a modern man.Kyungsoo never thought he’d look so good, not when the last time he saw him in old clothes from his closet.

Kyungsoo had pictured this a million times in bed despite his resolve that he wouldn’t think about him, wishing he’d see this boy with his golden-green eyes one more time. And that time had come, on a hot summer’s day when he least expected to see him.

“J...Jongin?” Kyungsoo whispered, not daring to blink.

Perhaps it truly was a summer dream. Kyungsoo had watched him leave two years ago; why would he return?

But then Jongin smiled his smile, the one made Kyungsoo’s heart clench in his chest, stepping forward till he could place his hands on Kyungsoo’s neck, holding his face up to plant a small kiss on Kyungsoo’s lips.

Kyungsoo could still remember how he smelled the last time he saw him, brimstone and earth filling his nostrils and the taste of his own blood on his tongue. God, how he’d missed Jongin. The trees seemed to agree, waving their branches in silent rejoice at Jongin’s long awaited return.

“I’ve come back,” Jongin whispered. This time, Kyungsoo never wanted to let go.  


End file.
